


(In)finite

by CookiesVersusCream



Category: The Adventure Zone (Podcast)
Genre: Existentialism, Gen, Introspection, all that good shit
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-08-11
Updated: 2017-08-11
Packaged: 2018-12-13 22:45:09
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 933
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11769966
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/CookiesVersusCream/pseuds/CookiesVersusCream
Summary: In his final moments, John reflects.





	(In)finite

**Author's Note:**

> *throws confetti* WHO'S READY FOR AN EXISTENTIAL CRISIS? *throws more confetti*

There’s something about mortality that’s innately horrifying.

It’s funny, John thinks, how he spent so much time pondering the truth of all things, yet never came to this simple conclusion. But then again, it does make sense that he had really never considered death before. For so long, he had been obsessed with the polar opposite of mortality. Of the finite, the ending. For the past, what has it been– a century, he knows for sure, but could it be millennia?– he had devoted his entire being to the incomprehensible vastness of the omniverse, and how, in that vastness, it was inconceivably wicked. All that he ever thought about, all that fueled him, was the prospect of becoming larger, grander than it all. Like that somehow made him superior– to what?

If he had succeeded, became greater than literally all of existence, thrashed around long enough and with enough force until he tore apart the bonds that make reality what it is, what would he have achieved? Would he overcome infinity? What would that even mean, or entail? Would it bring him comfort? Prove that he has worth, when the very nature of the omniverse makes it so that everything that isn’t the omniverse is negligible by comparison? Prove that something he did actually mattered, or even could matter, when nothing anyone else ever did was of any importance? Is infinity so terrible because it reminds him of his own finiteness, the finiteness that everything that isn’t the omniverse possesses?

Or did he want something else? Would overcoming infinity bring him some sort of ultimate enlightenment? It was one thing to understand the sheer extent of infinity; that he had realized, and made everyone and everything else realize, a long, long time ago. But understanding why reality is so infinite, what makes it that way, is something else completely. Did he want to discover some fact so fundamental about reality and its never-ending nature that it is indiscernible, unless one attains its greatness? Was forming the Hunger an attempt to find answers, answers born from some primal curiosity that exists in all people? Would those answers actually mean anything? Be of any practical use, once everything was gone, devoured by his own creation? 

And what would happen to John if he, or The Hunger, or whatever amalgamation the two had become, broke the threshold that contains reality? Would he already have consumed everything that there is to consume, resulting in an absolute nothingness? Would he, himself, become infinite?

Would he become the very thing he despises?

(Fears, even? No. He would never admit that.)

He supposes that none of these questions will matter soon, anyhow. He looks at the dwarf sitting across from him, who’s currently babbling on about his kids and how they are some sort of gift, how they have a significance that John is incapable of understanding. Or would be, if he hadn’t recently relearned what it means to be frail, restricted, restrained. How finity, despite its limits, can hold so much power. The past decade had been a constant lesson in this. As Merle goes on, he can’t help but wonder if the dwarf has some sort of point, as insignificant as it may be. If so much pain can be found in being powerless, can happiness be found too? After all, it was Merle’s persistent optimism that caused John to summon him in the first place.

The conversation continues. John admits that he thought about having kids, however long ago, and Merle asks him why he never did. He says something about having other priorities. The chess game continues. John takes another one of Merle’s pawns with his king. Another bond forms. John hopes, prays that Merle understands what he’s trying to say. He makes some joke about having a billion kids. The Hunger appears, scrutinizing his every move. He takes another piece. Another bond is created. Merle asks him about himself, about what he did before he became The Hunger. He tells Merle what he told him before: that he was a motivational speaker. Merle responds, but he doesn’t quite get it. Get what John needs him to understand. What, John realizes in that moment, he needs like he’s never needed anything before, because despite everything he’s done, despite everything he’s become, despite the fact that he thought he was big and powerful enough to be able to accept a concept so puny and simple as nonexistence, the idea of death still terrifies him.

So he looks Merle straight in the eye and says, “I told people what they needed to hear.”

From there, everything spirals downwards. One of Merle’s knights transforms into a hologram of a literal knight, and attacks John’s king. The bonds break, freeing the pieces that the king had absorbed in a violent explosion. The Hunger glares and screeches, and John barely has time to react before long, sinuous arms fly towards him, hands grabbing him, tearing him apart. They seize his legs and start pulling him into the floor. By this point, fear and instinct have completely taken over, and he’s screaming, reaching for Merle, because there’s nothing else he can physically do. Merle wraps his arms around him in an attempt to pull him out, to save him, but to no avail. The embrace feels nice, though. He thinks that he would have liked being hugged by Merle more often.

With his last breath, he tells Merle how to destroy what he had spent so long creating. He tells Merle how to defeat The Hunger, and hopes, prays that it’s enough.


End file.
